HUMAN IMPACTS ON TROPICAL FORESTS

Human Impacts on Tropical Forests



Threats from Humankind

The greatest cause of tropical rainforest destruction today comes from human activities, which, unlike natural damage, are unrelenting and thorough. Although most of this deforestation is driven by national and international economic forces, a significant proportion serves no long-term purpose; it results from subsistence activities on a local level. Many of the effects from human-induced destruction of the rainforests are probably irreversible within our time

Human beings are the ones who are a major concern for the deforestation and its devastations over the years. A number of human activities are causing this to happen, oil extraction, logging, mining, fires, war, commercial agriculture, cattle ranching, hydroelectric projects, pollution, hunting and poaching, the collection of fuel wood and building material, and road construction.

The effects of human activities on the environment are numerous and familiar. The rate of destruction of vegetation cover is about 200,000 km2 per year. This is supposed to have been destroyed over the past 50 years more than half of tropical forests. According to the author, in just half a century we have finished with the product of between 50 and 100 million years of evolution. Life has maintained a close relationship with the forest. Many cultures have relied on forest products obtained such as wood for fuel or construction, paper, fruits, medicines, etc. But at the same time, with the population growth forests were felled to become farmland to produce more food, and also, in many times, it was considered that forests were a source of disease, a refuge for outlaws and hindered the defense, so that cleared large areas around the cities, among other things, too, caused the demise of many forests.

It is estimated that about 10,000 years ago, when he finished the last cold period, the forests occupied between 80 and 90% of the land surface, but since then has been growing deforestation and forests now cover between 25 % and 35% of the land surface, whichever is the criterion by which to determine what is forest and what is not.

Human Impacts on Tropical Forests

Can be defined as "forest is any land area where partnerships are growing vegetables, prevailing trees of different sizes that have been exploited or not, capable of producing timber or other products, affecting the climate and the hydrological regime and also provide protection for wildlife.”

Forests serve important ecological functions, among which are:

Regulation of water

The forests retain rainwater. So easy to infiltrate into the ground and recharge aquifers. Also reduce erosion by slowing water and holding the soil, and lower the risk of flooding, both water retention as they do to prevent sediment flow that increase the volume of flood water and make them more dangerous.

Influence on climate

In inland areas more than 50% of the air humidity is caused by water pumped through the roots and the leaves transpired by vegetation. When forests are cut down large areas or forests the climate becomes ...